Page:EB1911 - Volume 18.djvu/926

 Tver and Ryazan principalities. Under Ivan Kalita (1325–1341) the principality of Vladimir—where the princes of Kiev and the metropolitan of Russia had taken refuge after the wars that desolated south-western Russia—became united with Moscow; and in 1325 the metropolitan Peter established his seat at Moscow, thus giving new importance and powerful support to the young principality. In 1367 the Kremlin was enclosed within stone walls, which proved strong enough to resist the Lithuanians under Olgierd (1368 and 1371). Kalita’s grandson, Dmitry Donskoi, annexed the dominions of Starodub and Rostov, and took part in the renowned battle of Kulikovo (1380), on the Don in the government of Tula, where the Russians ventured for the first time to oppose the Mongols in a great pitched battle. Two years after the battle of Kulikovo Moscow was taken and plundered (for the last time) by Toktamish, khan of the Golden Horde of the Mongols.

The increase of the principality continued during the first half of the 15th century, and at the death of Vasili (or Basil) the Blind, in 1462, it included not only the whole of what is now the government of Moscow, but also large parts of the present governments of Kaluga, Tula, Vladimir, Nijniy-Novgorod, Kostroma, Vyatka, Vologda, Yaroslav and Tver. It was not however until the reign (1462–1505) of Ivan III. that the prince of Moscow set up claims to other parts of Russia, and called himself “Ruler of all Russia.” In 1520 Moscow was said to contain 45,000 houses and 100,000 inhabitants. Ivan IV. annexed Novgorod and Pskov to Moscow, and subdued Kazan and Astrakhan. But after his reign Moscow suffered from a long series of misfortunes. In 1547 two conflagrations destroyed nearly the whole of the city, and a few days later the Tatar khan of the Crimea advanced against it with 100,000 men. He was compelled to retire from the banks of the Oka, but in 1571, taking advantage of the state into which Russia was brought by the extravagances of Ivan, he took Moscow and burned all the city outside the Kremlin. The gates of the Kremlin having been shut, thousands of people perished in the flames, and the annals record that of the 200,000 who then formed the population of Moscow, only 30,000 remained. In 1591 the Tatars of the Crimea were again in Moscow and avenged their repulse from the Kremlin on the inhabitants of the unfortified town. Meanwhile the political influence of the boyars had gradually increased. The peasants, who settled on their lands, or on the estates which the prince bestowed upon his boyars, had become serfs; and the political tendency of the boyars, supported by the wealthier middle classes (which had also a rapid development in the same century), was to become rulers of Russia, like the noblesse of Poland. During the reign of Feodor or Theodore (1584–1598), Boris Godunov, the regent, ordered the murder of the heir to the throne, Demetrius, son of Ivan IV., and himself became tsar of Russia. Moscow suffered severely in the struggle which ensued, especially when the populace rose and exterminated the Polish garrison, on which occasion the whole of the city outside the Kremlin was again burned and plundered. But in compensation it acquired in the eyes of the nation a greatly increased importance, as a stronghold against foreign invasions. The Novo-dyevichy or Virgins’ nunnery, which the Poles besieged (1610) without taking, was invested with a higher sanctity. The city also by-and-by recovered its commercial importance, and this the more as other commercial cities were ruined, or fell into the hands of foreigners; and thirty years later Moscow was again a wealthy city. Owing, however, to the ever-increasing concentration of power in the hands of the tsar, and the steady development of autocracy, it lost much of its political importance, and assumed more and more, especially under Alexis Mikhailovich (1645–1676), the character of a private estate of the tsar, its suburbs becoming mere dependencies of his vast household.

During the whole of the 17th century Moscow continued to be the scene of many troubles and internal struggles. The people several times revolted against the favourites of the tsar, and were subdued only by cruel executions, in which the streltzy—a class of citizens and merchants rendering hereditary military service—supported the tsar. Afterwards appeared the raskol or nonconformist movement, and in 1648, when the news spread that Stenka Razin was advancing on Moscow “to settle his accounts with the boyars,” the populace was kept from rising only by severe repressive measures and by the defeat of the invader. Later on, the streltzy themselves engaged in a series of rebellions, which led the youthful Peter the Great to suppress them (1698) amid streams of blood. The opposition encountered at Moscow to his plans of reforming Russia according to his ideal of military autocracy, the conspiracies of the boyars and merchants, the distrust of the mass of the people, all compelled him afterwards to leave (1703) the city, and to seek, as his ancestors had done, a new capital. This he founded at St Petersburg on the very confines of the military empire he was trying to establish.

In the course of the 18th century Moscow became the seat of a passive and discontented opposition to the St Petersburg government. Peter the Great, wishing to see Moscow like other capitals of western Europe, ordered that only stone houses should be built within the walls of the town, that the streets should be paved, and so on; but his orders were only partially executed. In 1722 the Kremlin was restored. In 1739 the city became once more the prey of a great conflagration; two others followed in 1748 and 1753, and gave an opportunity for enlarging some streets and squares. Catherine II. tried to conciliate the nobility, and applied herself to benefit the capital with new and useful buildings, such as the senate house, the foundlings’ and several other hospitals, salt stores, &c.

The last public disaster was experienced by Moscow in 1812. On the 13th of September, six days after the battle of Borodino, the Russians troops evacuated Moscow, and the next day the French occupied the Kremlin. The same night, while Napoleon was waiting for a deputation of Moscow notables, and received only a deputation of the rich raskolnik merchants, the capital was set on fire through the carelessness of its own inhabitants (it was no heroic deed of Roztopchin’s), the bazaar, with its stores of wine, spirits and chemical stuffs, becoming the prey of the flames. The inhabitants abandoned the city, and it was pillaged by the French troops, as well as by Russians themselves, and the burning of Moscow became the signal of a general rising of the peasants against the French. The want of supplies and the impossibility of wintering in a ruined city, continually attacked by cossacks and peasants, compelled Napoleon to leave Moscow on the 19th of October, after he had unsuccessfully attempted to blow up certain parts of the Kremlin.

MOSEL (Fr. Moselle), a river of France and Germany, a left-bank tributary of the Rhine. It rises at an altitude of 2411 ft. on the west flank of the Vosges, close to the Franco-German frontier, and a little N. of the Ballon d’Alsace. It flows first N.W. through the French department of Vosges, bends towards N. through that of Meurthe-et-Moselle, forms the Franco-German frontier for a short distance below Pagny, and enters Lorraine. From Sierck to Wasserbillig it forms the frontier between the Rhine Province and Luxemburg, then, turning N.E., it follows a sinuous course and reaches the Rhine at Coblenz. The principal towns on the banks of the Mosel are, in France: Remiremont, Épinal, Toul and Pont-à-Mousson; in Germany: Metz, Diedenhofen, Trier (Trèves) and Coblenz. The Mosel receives the waters of the Moselotte, Meurthe, Seille and Saar (its principal tributary) on the right, and the Madon, Orne and Sauer on the left. Navigation for small vessels extends downwards from Fronard, a little below Nancy, the Mosel canal affording communication from a point above Metz to the frontier. In the lower part of the valley are the vineyards from which the well-known Mosel wines are produced. The valley of the Mosel, especially the part between Trier and Kochem, is noted both for picturesque scenery and for many sites of antiquarian interest. The length of the river is 314 m.

 MOSELLE-LINE, the designation of a line of French barrier forts (forts d’arrêt) on the upper Moselle between the fortresses